President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) has
had a wonderful reputation in the United States as one of the great Presidents.
He was the only one in history to serve more than two terms.
Indeed, FDR was a gifted leader, speaker, and a most charismatic and charming
man. He was an able war leader and deserves some praise and accolades.
I have a different view of FDR that I want to present here. Below I
will list some of the many flaws and damaging things that he did as president
that cannot be ignored or swept away under the rug.
FDR was a liberal's liberal. He was the
first liberal president of the United States who, in many ways, transformed
America - for the worse. An example:
- Economically, he was a follower
of John Maynard Keynes, the British economist who was an
advocate of big government spending. FDR spent like a drunken
sailor, through his failed New Deal. He truly believed that big
government spending was the fix for economic problems. We now know
that this was wrong. Let's take the 1930s depression as an example.
Did all the government programs of FDR fix the economy? In
1932, when he took office, the unemployment rate was
23.5%.
In 1939, after eight years of massive government spending the unemployment
rate was still at 17%. Do you call this an economic success? The
economy was revived after WWII when taxes were slashed by a Republican
Congress, which among other things, reduced the highest income tax rate
from the astronomical amount of 94% for earners of $200,000 and above, and
other incentives for economic growth were passed by Congress, reversing
FDR's failed New Deal policies. Click here for a short essay on this.
Economically, FDR was a failure.
- How about Social Security? Was
that not a stroke of genius? Well, no, it was not. Let me ask
you a question. Can you live on what you make on Social Security?
Probably, 95% cannot and would be in deep poverty if they only had
Social Security. Let me give you a personal example. I
prepared for retirement by making private investments in an IRA and a 457
Plan from work. Together, I invested less than $30,000. These
two investments now give me double the monthly income I get from Social
Security. Oh, you say, most people don't know how to invest.
It's not rocket science; all you need it the willingness to put
money in investments that will produce on a regular basis throughout your
working life. I had zero training; I learned it myself. Very
easy. If I had invested all I paid into Social Security in my 45+
years of working I'd have a multi-million dollar investment now.
Social Security has very limited benefits.
Now for the second part: FDR's damaging legacy:
- Government spending. Because of the huge government spending legacy that he started we now have out of control government spending. As of this writing the national debt is over 18 Trillion dollars. In 1945, at the end of World War II, and after spending $296 Billion on the war, our national debt was $259 Billion. Today, it's 18 Trillion dollars. Click here for the history of our national debt.
- The internment of Japanese
American and to a lesser extent Italian and German Americans. What
FDR did to loyal, good, if not the best, American citizens of Japanese
ancestry is beyond forgiveness. If you were a Japanese-American in
1942, you're life would be changed forever. You would end up in a
concentration camp, accused of crimes you never committed. You never
got your day in court, or your due process under the Constitution, you
were arrested by FDR's government and imprisoned like a common criminal.
Many people lost all their property and never got it back. Italian
and German legal immigrants not born in America were labeled enemies of
the state just for their ethnicity.
Many Italian and German Americans were rounded up and imprisoned
for no reason at all. Many lost
their business and livelihood. The
Italian-American Mayor of San Francisco, Angelo Rossi was publicly
humiliated by innuendo as a Mussolini follower, with zero evidence.
All untrue. So
was FDR a great man? Depends on whom you ask. To some he was,
to others, and I'm one of these, I believe FDR did more harm than good.
Granted he was a gifted leader, but even tyrants such as Mussolini
and Hitler were gifted leaders. What was the fruit of their
labor? You will know them by their
fruits.
